A Possible Cross Country Move

Posted by Mrs Money on July 15th, 2009

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Just when I think we’re getting our life in order, Mr. Money throws a monkey wrench in my plans and drops a bombshell on me. The owner of the restaurant he is a chef at is looking at possibly opening up a new breakfast restaurant and he wants him to run it. They’re looking in Denver, Colorado.

You would think I would be ecstatic because of how homesick I am and how much I want to move back there. The truth is, I’m scared as heck because that is one change that we would have to consider very carefully. We’d have to sell our house and may take a loss on it; we’d be much farther from my family, and if we have kids soon I think it would kill me not to be close to my mom. Of course, I would be close to Mr. Money’s family and that would help, but it’s just not the same as my family.

To be honest, I feel pretty stupid right now. For a long time I have yearned to move back to Colorado. Now the opportunity could be knocking on our door, and I’m hiding down in the basement. Here are some of my concerns:

-We’d have to sell our house. I have recently started falling in love with our house. I have put blood, sweat, tears, and money into this house. I have painted, replaced flooring, learned about carpentry, etc here. This is my baby. I love that we have property (almost an acre) that I can grow my own vegetables on, we don’t have neighbors behind us (it’s a big field), and that we’re not in a subdivision. This house just suits us. And we’ve made it our own. If we sold it, we’d possibly take a loss if it’s gone down in value since we bought it two years ago, plus we’d have to pay realtor fees which I would hate. I hate the fact that selling the house would cost us a ton of money.

– I would be so far away from my family. If we had a baby, my mom would be so sad she couldn’t just drive 5 hours and be here to see her grandbaby. That kills me.

– It would cost a lot of money to rent a truck to move across country. We’d sell a lot of our stuff, but I know we’d like to take some things with us.

– It’s more expensive to live out there and I don’t know how much of a house we could afford.

There’s a chance they may be opening up another restaurant here that Mr. Money could run, and I’m hoping that will pan out so we can have a little time to think about it seriously (and hopefully the housing market will recover a little too).

And here are some of the positives:

– We wouldn’t be homesick anymore. We would be living near Mr. Money’s family and we’d have family nearby to be with.

– We would fit in better out there with our crunchy hippie lifestyle. We could find friends out there that enjoy the same things as us.

– We could do many frugal activities like hiking, biking, camping, etc. We love those things and miss it!

Ugh. So many decisions and I’m only 25! I almost feel like I’m having a quarter life crisis. I’ve got to find a new job, deal with fertility problems, and decide if I want to move across country.

I would love your input on my dilemma. What would you do if you were in my shoes?

8 Responses to “A Possible Cross Country Move”

I hope everything works out for you. I’m about 1.5 hours away from both our parents. We’ve been thinking about moving and finding some land, but that has our parents upset. I’m 25 too and want to have kids, but dh says no kids until I’m making a salary or a certain amount on our blog so I can pay my heap of student loans. I’ve been working on the blog since nobody’s hiring “because of the economy” in the small midwest town where we live. We have talked to a realtor and sounds like we could get more for our house than we paid for it 3 years ago. I also spoke with an ex-realtor online – you don’t have to pay for full realtor services – you can do a la cart like just pay for the MLS which could be only a few hundred dollars. Their fee is also negotiable although they don’t let you know that.

Would it be possible for your mom to fly to Denver to visit? It’s more money of course, but driving 10 hours round-trip ain’t cheap, either.

Does your mom make the drive to visit you now often? “Just” 5 hours one-way isn’t short, if you ask me. That’s committing a full weekend per visit, which is ok but it might be hard to do often.

Our families are a good 7-8 hours away and we don’t see them enough. We’ve gotten together 3 times this year so far I think…but my parents are coming in like 2 weeks so that’ll be the 4th. It really would be nice to see each other at least once a month or so. I dunno if we’ll ever move back, though. We’re growing pretty attached to Pittsburgh and my husband does like his job. A lot.

Do you think you’d want to be in Colorado again someday? Maybe someday, but not now? This is sounding like the perfect opportunity for you to pick up and head west, even if you have to take a small loss on your house. Moving with kids would be a thousand times harder.

Then again, all of our families are in Indiana, though my side is 2 hours away from Shane’s side.

I like his family, so I think I’d be ok with living close to them and further from my parents, but I also know that my parents would hop on a plane or drive to come see us if that’s what they had to do. I think I’d rather fly than spend 10 hours in a car round-trip.

But…it does sound like you’re growing attached to where you are. Do you see yourself living there for 10+ years AND being happy there?

You need to be happy where you’re living. Longing to live somewhere else isn’t so good.

That is so so tough! Selling the house may be the hardest part, will you have to put up cash to sell it or will you just not get your downpayment back? I’d have to come up with $50k+ to sell mine and that makes it impossible for me to unload the place. You really need to stay in a house for 5-7 years for it to make financial sense, selling after 2 years you almost always come out behind. I don’t have that strong of ties to family so personally it wouldn’t matter, but now that we are getting towards the child bearing age I can see the advantage of having family nearby for childcare help. But it sounds like you will still have family nearby, just Mr Money’s. I think lifestyle wise it sounds like CO is a better fit, but is it worth the extra price? I pay a lot to live somewhere that I love, sometimes I wonder if we’d be better off somewhere cheaper. I hope you come to a solution.

@ Kristin- Thanks so much for letting me know that! I had no idea. I would love to move somewhere that has more land than we have. We have around 3/4 to 1 acre, and plant our own garden. I’d love to have more room for that!

@ Deirdre- I love your attitude! 🙂 Thanks for the positive comment!

@ Kacie- My mom could fly, and if my hubby is making enough money we could possibly pay to fly her out. That would be awesome. As it is right now, they come to visit about every other month or so. Basically whenever I tell her I miss her. 🙂 It’s awesome because my dad is retired now and my mom is a SAHM so they have the flexibility.

I can see my self living here 10 years and being happy. Now that I’ve gotten a lot of work done on the house and it’s starting to become ours, I’m loving it. I am proud of all the work I’ve put into it.

I do think if we lived in Colorado again I would love it. Someone told me the other day that I need to put my husband first, and that really hit home with me. I’ve relaxed a little bit about the situation and if the opportunity arises and it makes sense, I think we’ll do it. It will be a long move though! Thanks so much for your comments. You are a voice of reason to me sometimes!

@ Miss M- I agree that it would fit our lifestyle better. I think that if we would be truly happy living there it would be worth the higher cost of living. I would rather live in a small house out there with more land versus a larger house with no land. We’ll see what happens. I’m trying to take it one day at a time. I get too stressed out otherwise. 🙂

Yakezie!

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